One Hamilton traffic stop, two very different views
Black preacher was dragged from car
Two men are sitting in a parked car talking in the early hours of Feb. 13, 2012.
The men are black — that will become relevant — and the car is parked on West Avenue North at the intersection of King Street East, an area designated by police as a neighbourhood with high crime rates and in need of extra attention.
Noticing the car doesn’t have a front licence plate, a police van carrying five armed, uniformed officers pulls up next to the vehicle. One of the officers notices the driver make a subtle hand movement, as if he’s attempting to conceal something under the front seat.
Windows are rolled down and from that point, everyone agrees, things quickly go off the rails.
The driver — Rikki Jeremiah, a 50-year-old preacher with the Seventh Day Adventist Church on the Hamilton Mountain — will be dragged from his car, handcuffed and knocked to the pavement.
By the time the incident concludes, police will acknowledge that no criminal activity had taken place, no charges were laid and the lack of a front licence plate was explained by the fact there was a dealer plate on the back and Jeremiah is, in fact, a car dealer.
What’s more, the concealed item that police feared might be a weapon turned out to be a Bluetooth earpiece.
Jeremiah is now suing Hamilton police and five officers for assault, false arrest and violating the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
In his closing submission Friday, Jeremiah’s lawyer said the missing licence plate — a possible Highway Traffic Act violation — was simply a pretext used by the officers to investigate something else.
One of the reasonable inferences that can be drawn, lawyer Bob Munroe said, is that the officers were engaged in racial profiling.
“There is no other rational basis for explaining the lack of reasonable and probable grounds” for the actions taken by the officers that night, Munroe said.
“Racial profiling on the part of police officers is an extremely difficult thing to prove,” he said. “Police officers are not going to admit they use racial slurs when they’re dealing with people.”
Munroe also noted that at no point during the altercation was Jeremiah given a clear reason why he was being asked to provide his driver and vehicle information. The officer he was dealing with, Munroe said, simply became angry and frustrated because he felt his authority was being questioned.
The officers have testified that Jeremiah was the one who became angry and argumentative when he was asked to provide his information.
Stephen Chisholm, lawyer for the five officers, said the missing licence plate was a valid reason under the Highway Traffic Act to approach the vehicle and a section of the act requires a driver to provide identification when asked by police.
Chisholm noted that Jeremiah had taken anger management training as a result of a domestic dispute with his spouse about 18 years ago.
He stated that racial profiling “was not a factor in this case.”
Justice Toni Skarica is expected to release his decision by the end of October.